Smithford Street (inc. Ram Bridge)

72 Smithford Street, 1911.

Nice ad, Heathite Rob has this one of the same shop but in an earlier guise. Is that a lion on the roof?!

I guess so Neil as it's called 'Lion House' in the advert!

I'd actually missed that Mods! Wonder what he story is behind that? Hmm another challenge!

This week's 'Picture of the Week' goes to my friend Cliff Berwick on FB. Smithford Street during the Blackout in December 1939 - great detail, you can even see inside the cafe! Helen, would that be the gap on the left, where the chap is on the ladder, into Vicar Lane?

NeilsYard, Can you please explain the story.

No Neil, Vicar Lane was a few more big buildings beyond the guy on the ladder.

The ladder may be by the rear entrance to the Kings Head Hotel?

Kaga see 352 photo it will explain! THE LION on top of the Lion House.

It's about six pm, the photographer has been alerted, and the copper is watching the crowd not the traffic. No bus, car or cycle about. I would assume it's an extension to the shoppers for an hour, probably for Christmas. At this time the shops were fully stocked, the effect from the U-boats not hit home yet. The Kings Head is blacked out where the ladder rests, the bottom of the street also, probably the rest of the town. Eight out of ten of that crowd will bump into something before they get home, shop girls were let out early to get home before dark. Annewiggy, you could check this if you wish. Prof, I didn't ask about the lion, but thanks anyway.

There are easier maps, more comprehensive maps and older maps but the Fire Insurance maps are very useful. From the corner of Hertford Street you get the (new) Kings Head. Note the passage into the inner courtyard. Then the buildings step out (that's where the guy on the ladder is). Then you get buildings 6-11 before Vicar Lane. The Building line of the Kings Head is closer to the original width of the road as shops were built out under the first and maybe even second overhang of the original building. The top overhang was probably sawn off. A brick face was then built up the entire front. Each modification took up more 'pavement' although it may not have been marked out as that.

Found this on line Helen, I think it is your map but more of it!

It is Prof. It's one of the Fire Insurance maps at the British Library. Many more to be perused and zoomed into. Fire Insurance Maps

Until 1818 Coventry had never had a permanent building special adapted as a theatre - several places had been used, including wooden huts. Sir Skears Rew, Coventry Mayor, retired and having spare land and spare time, he built behind his house in Smithford Street a theatre calling it the 'Theatre Royal'. It opened on Easter Monday, April 1818, with ' A way to pay off old debts' and 'The Irishman in London' to a very large and welled filled house of the nobility and gentry. In 1815 the Prince Regent was staying at Coombe Abbey with Lord Craven - the Mayor Rew, with a corporation, moved by a sense of duty (the prince still owned a large part of the city) paid him a dutiful address and acknowledgment, so well did it go the Prince made him a Sir, but finding no sword in the Abbey made him a knight with a butchers chopper, which was placed afterwards in Warwick Museum. Next door to Rew's house in Smithford Street once lived Robert Onley Henry VII came from Bosworth Field, entertained by the Mayor Robert Onley, whom he knighted as an Alderman.

Can't recall where I got this one from so apols and credit if it was someone on here but this shows very nicely the line of Smithford Street with High Street - Post copied from topic White Lion pub, Smithford Street on 1st Feb 2022 11:29 am